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- #26
I agree with most of the sentiments. Just on Pyke, whilst we’re making the Finals, it’d be hard to see us part ways with him. If we don’t make it then it’s certainly an agenda to ponder.Unfortunately there’s a lot of changes that probably need to be made before Pyke. We have a non-football Chairman and CEO, which leaves Ricciuto as “king maker” from a footballing sense, especially since he’s installed an inexperienced/incompetent mate as head of football. We’re then stuck with a rusted on senior assistant who’s on his 5th senior coach, having spent time as caretaker himself as well. We’ve then got a forward line coach who couldn’t find a job anywhere else despite >10 years experience as an assistant and was only out there because we couldn’t find anyone else. Then we’ve got Mattner and Godden as 1st year assistants.
Chapman’s not going anywhere unfortunately and I’m happy with Fagan as CEO as long as we have a strong and capable Head of Football.
From there it gets really complicated. Given Pykes experiences, he’s someone who as senior coach would probably want to effectively assume the role of “head of football” anyway, answering directly to Fagan, with “head of football” reporting to him(it’s probably more Football operations manager), if we even needed one. I would expect similar would already be happening at Hawthorn with Clarkson.
From there though we need a senior assistant who probably needs to be able to take on the “day to day” coaching stuff and would be the 2ic in the structure. This is where Campo’s at currently, but probably needs to be moved on and we need to invest heavily IMO in a “senior coach in waiting”. Depending how things go, this person could potentially assuming senior coaching duties with Pyke moving into a more senior “head of football” role down the line. It would need to be well paid to attract the ideal candidates which is where we fall down I suspect.
Essentially id look at:
Out: Campo, Hart, Burton
Shuffle Clark perhaps to the “head of football” role reporting to Pyke directly.
Not sure re Godden. Mattner stays.
From there we’d bring in a senior assistant, forward +/- midfield coach.
Though really the game last night, the first half we were the better and dominant team. This showed Pyke was being listened to by the players. Just errant kicking kept the Power in the game. Then we saw in the second half players were basically chasing their opponents when not in possession, or fluffing it up when handling the ball.
To me, the second half showed we are lacking in mental/physical stamina as a team, rather than the coach being crap as the main reason for the loss and lack of 2nd half run.